From my side thanks for the apology and from my side again you ARE forgiven!!

Oliver, please feel free to do a search on my username, I have posted 2 trip reports and you are welcome to copy and paste any of my photos for use on your website! Just let me know which one you want to use. I don't want any recognition, money or anything else. Only pity is that I don't think my photos are any good though!

I still can't see why anybody must pay for the commercial use of a photo taken by him/herself is a National Park. The park belongs to us and is part of our heritage. The Park is run on my tax money so if I want to use a photo taken by myself on my heritage soil, why should I pay for that? Nobody can have a copy right on a lion or birdie running around or flying around in a national park....they were created by God!! Donald Duck or Goovy at Disney World are something else, they were created by Disney!

TheunsH wrote:Oliver, please feel free to do a search on my username, I have posted 2 trip reports and you are welcome to copy and paste any of my photos for use on your website! Just let me know which one you want to use. I don't want any recognition, money or anything else.

Oh well, that settles it… Oliver’s problem is sorted ….maybe all ‘mite who feel they want to take on this policy of SANParks and are prepared for Krugerpark.com to freely use their photos (they obviously are not interested in paying for photos), should send Oliver a pm. I am not going to do that….just do not have the time and energy to eventually have a fight with SANParks over the fees they want to charge me…and I strongly doubt that if it all reaches that point, Krugerpark.com will stand with you.

As for forgiveness…ja well, in my email exchange with Oliver in July, I told him that I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt in that he might have used my images not with malicious intent, but rather due to a lack of knowledge of the rules on copyright….Oliver, I’m sure you can remember that?So I have to say, I was somewhat surprised when after that, I received requests on Flickr for the use of my photos…. I believed that by now, after all their exchanges with SANParks and the affected ‘mite, they would have gotten up to date with the relevant legislation and policies?…IMHO, the “benefit of the doubt” is being stretched very thin now….

TheunsH wrote:Oliver, please feel free to do a search on my username, I have posted 2 trip reports and you are welcome to copy and paste any of my photos for use on your website! Just let me know which one you want to use. I don't want any recognition, money or anything else.

Oh well, that settles it… Oliver’s problem is sorted ….maybe all ‘mite who feel they want to take on this policy of SANParks and are prepared for Krugerpark.com to freely use their photos (they obviously are not interested in paying for photos), should send Oliver a pm. I am not going to do that….just do not have the time and energy to eventually have a fight with SANParks over the fees they want to charge me…and I strongly doubt that if it all reaches that point, Krugerpark.com will stand with you.

Jumbo, I may be wrong, but I still can't see why somebody must pay for a photo taken in Kruger of something that was created by God! How can anybody or entity have a copy right on something they didn't create? I'm not talking about copying and pasting photos that were taken by somebody else here....I know it happened and Oliver has rectified that as far as I can tell.

As far as your point on if Krugerpark.com will stand with me...well I don't care, I'm not going into battle with SANParks and if SANParks wants to claim "photo fees" from Krugerpark.com over one of my ugly photos, then they will have to fight it out...I'm not making money by using a photo of an animal in the park for commercial purposes.

Please understand that I don't take Krugerpark.com's side here over that of SANParks. I don't agree with the photo policy and obviously you do.

CasperDp wrote:Jumbo, I am fortunate enough to know you and Oliver maybe I should introduce you over a braai and good bottle of wine. He is not so bad.

But just for the sake of a spanner I am going to throw one in the works. How much are you paying SANParks for the foto's advertised on Photobucket?

Dear CasperDpI think you are mistaken me for somebody else … I have never used Photobucket…post some links so that we can see what you are talking about. My photos are all on Flickr…and anybody who really knows me, knows this as a fact. I have never sold any of my photos, have not advertised any for sale…and also will not sell them…my photography is mine. There is only one website that I have given permission to use my photos…note: free of charge….www.biodiversityexplorer.org …a virtually museum created by Museum of Cape Town. BTW, welcome to the forum…at least it seems this topic is boosting our memberships numbers

TheunsH wrote:Please understand that I don't take Krugerpark.com's side here over that of SANParks. I don't agree with the photo policy and obviously you do.

Hi TheunsH

Just for the record…I also do not agree with this policy….but the fact is, it is there and I, as complete armature photographer, who has now wish to make money out of my hobby, am not going to waste time on trying to change this policy. The fact is, if I give Krugerpark.com the go ahead to use my photos…even if I take no money from them…I am liable for the fees because my photo is being used commercially. The bottom line…Krugerpark.com is either suppose to take their own photos on which they pay SANParks, or they should buy their photos from professional photographers who has already paid for the commercial use.

Casper, I would have been VERY happy if those were indeed my photos…they are stunning …but sadly, I cannot claim them as mine …and my name is also not Aninet…sure there are a couple of people on this forum that can vouch for that. So I presume that you guys also got this Aninet all worked up about using his/her photos?

I am no expert on copyright and incorrectly assumed that images posted in the forum were public domain, or that they belonged to SANParks, which we had referenced as owning the copyright on our pages,e.g. http://www.krugerpark-direct.com/skukuza/skukuza-camp" We were using these images to sell and promote SANParks products. We are not the only party which benefit from selling these products as SANParks also benefits from the business. We devote much of the company resources to advertising and marketing these domains and send by far the majority of our guests to SANParks. Almost any supplier of accommodation will happily hand over content/images to assist in the marketing of their products. The usual way of doing things does not, however, apply here and I fully appreciate that - I know this now and have found out the hard way. Those images were not used maliciously - we have a strong focus on marketing SANParks products and would never do anything to intentionally jeopardize our relationship or reputation in any way.

* Photographs we have used with permission from photographersNo, we did not inform our sources about the commercial implications, quite honestly I am still unsure as to exactly how this works. Have all tour operators incurred these costs? What are the costs exactly? It's hard to make decisions without this information. If we were charged per picture, for example, we may need to reduce the number of pics per camp. I did drop Nedret an email about using the pictures that we had taken to get some clarification at the time but she never responded - I know she is very busy. But, back to the point - there are only a few people whose pictures we are using that we do not know personally. The majority come from a staff member who has extensively traveled through the park. Obviously if anybody became liable, we would assume responsibility.

* Knowledge of the forumI was aware that staff had sourced images from the forum but was not aware of the copyright implications as mentioned above. We had problems using SANParks content in the past but resolved this by placing "Images & Text (c) SANParks.org" on all SANPark pages. I thought we were still covered by this text. After this blowout occurred, it became apparent that there seemed to be issues using other peoples copyrighted images of SANParks, in that we infringed on their personal copyright. But then it seems they can't claim copyright because the pictures are ultimately the property of SANParks, unless commerically licensed. But then nobody actually has a case of commercial licensing and exactly what it entails - I don't know of any other tour operators who have gone through that process. This is not an intuitive process, I find this genuinely confusing. As a web developer / businessman I am an expert in developing and marketing websites but by no means an expert in copyright.

Lastly, I have to say I find it odd that you now, only now, rediscovered the forum….after you built your entire marketing “campaign” with images obtained from this very forum.

I was well aware of the forum, what I said was that I had no knowledge of this thread. This thread came to my attention after Muntasir was sent a link earlier yesterday. Had I known about it, I would have replied months ago when this was taking place. The forum images did not make up our entire site either, but truthfully I am unsure of exactly how many were used. Either way, we acted quickly and removed every single last image off every SANPark product on our sites and started from scratch that Monday morning. I tried to respond to the problem as quickly as possible and devoted my full time to fixing everything.

Bottom line....Images were lifted like plagiarized verbatim text and presented as their own. They were placed on a web-presence for profit( with a very misleading URL) without any credit given to their source nor any payment made to any of the photographers let alone the organization the domain name should technically rightfully belong to.

We don't claim to be an official website on any of our site pages, and our primary intention was to use the images to sell and promote SANParks products - again, both parties benefit from the business, so payments are effectively made to SANParks. Again, I did not realise one should reference the photographers who took the SANParks forum pics for the reasons mentioned above.

Have to say im with Jumbo on this one. If all those images were taken off this very forum that has only now been re-discovered??! No man.Something still doesnt add up. Its irrelevant how much time one spends in the park with ones mom or how appreciative one is of the parks or their content.

I agree that in this debate it is completely irrelevant, but I'm also human and was definding claims made in other posts throughout this thread. As I mentioned earlier, I was aware of the forum but was not aware of this particular thread. Again, in the realm of online accommodation, it is rare for a supplier to not want you to use their images to sell their products and the usual way of doing things did not apply.

And bottom line….I believe that you, as an agent of SANParks, have a duty to keep yourself up to date with the policies of this organization and adhere to them.

Absolutely, I agree with you 100%. That's one of the reasons I am here and exactly why we are meeting with SANParks early December.

The bottom line from our side is this - I know now that what we did was wrong. I am not trying to justify our actions, but rather to explain them. I'm trying to explain our position and answer as many questions as candidly as possible. I'm also trying to gain insight into the situation and understand how everything works. We have a meeting scheduled with SANParks early December in which we will do that in more detail and discuss the operation of krugerpark.com, but I do feel the urge to address the posts in thread. I mean it when I say it is our sole intention to operate in an ethical and legal manner.

On a side note, we are based in Cape Town and are more than happy to discuss any of this in person. Myself and my business partner will be in Johannesburg early December for our meeting with SANParks and could also meet then?

Again thanks for you clarifying your points and actions concerning this question.

May I just say a few things, from my personal and professional point of view, on the commercial use of pictures by tour operators.I consider myself a semi-professional photographer and have been selling my pictures for the past 10 years to Italian tour operators, not of SA but Kenya & Tanzania. The basics are they request either single or stocks of pictures and I provide and charge according to the number of pictures and how long they will be used.A single picture can be paid for 1-2 or even more years and for the whole period I will not sell the same picture to others, in this case I give exclusivity on my picture!, and prices range widely according to a number of factors.Stocks will cost a lot less and I do not give exclusivity on the use of the pictures sold.In both cases my name/copyrights has to be mentioned.

I can do this exclusively because I have an agreement with the Kenya/Tanzanian authorities and pay an annual fee which allows me to sell my pictures for commercial use.

I have not done the same for SA simply because it is still not clear Sanparks charges for commercial use and, as many of us, still waiting to know.

Feel free to contact me if you need further info on this.

"You can leave Africa but Africa never leaves you"LIFE IS MADE OF GOOD AND BAD THINGS, I TAKE THE GOOD AND YOU CAN KEEP THE BAD!!!Andy Benaglia

oliverb wrote:The bottom line from our side is this - I know now that what we did was wrong. I am not trying to justify our actions, but rather to explain them. I'm trying to explain our position and answer as many questions as candidly as possible. I'm also trying to gain insight into the situation and understand how everything works. We have a meeting scheduled with SANParks early December in which we will do that in more detail and discuss the operation of krugerpark.com, but I do feel the urge to address the posts in thread. I mean it when I say it is our sole intention to operate in an ethical and legal manner.

Good post, Oliver …with this you have regained my “benefit of the doubt”

I agree that this policy is quite confusing, and it will be interesting to see the stance SANParks take on the travel trade…they will have to give this a very good thought because others might then claim that their coffee table books containing photos taken inside Kruger, is also used to promote the park …same goes for TV programmes filmed in the parks. I suppose a solution will be that they provide the entire travel trade with standard images?

CasperDp wrote:The question was do you know them?aninet+jumbo = animbo?

ROFL....You have to be kidding me!! … you can say the same for aninet+mumbo or limbo or jambo (Swahili)

Sherlock…like I said, my name is also not Aninet …and just for the record, I’m not the only “Jumbo” on the entire web.

Thanks for that information Andy, good example of how the copyright / licensing process takes place. I will let you know what transpires when we meet with the park - I hope there will be some clarification.

I agree that this policy is quite confusing, and it will be interesting to see the stance SANParks take on the travel trade…they will have to give this a very good thought because others might then claim that their coffee table books containing photos taken inside Kruger, is also used to promote the park …same goes for TV programmes filmed in the parks. I suppose a solution will be that they provide the entire travel trade with standard images?

I'm also interested to see the stance taken on the travel trade. It's difficult because there are so many tour operators marketing SANParks products which will inevitably be effected by whatever decision is reached. Having to police that in any great detail will take up unnecessary park resources, and I'm sure SANParks relies on the traveltrade network, at least to some extend, on generating revenue. Having a standard image set which tour operators could use would definitely be a good, controlled, solution. It would also mean that the park has a say in exactly what media is used to market their products, rather than leaving it up to operators who may use incorrect or misleading pictures to market them. Then operators can concentrate on what they intend to do, namely resell SANParks products.

And before I forget to mention..Sorry for being rude to everyone, thank you for the warm welcomes into the forum

TheunsH thank you for the very kind offer to use your images - very much appreciated. I have just taken a look and there are some really great pics in there. For the moment, we are going to hold back on adding or changing any pics whatsoever until we have more information on all the policies.

Scipio, thanks for the encouraging remarks, I also hope everything can be sorted out.

Oliver, My personal experience, on selling pictures now and as an ex tour operator, says that Sanparks has no way of controlling the situation. There is not way they can control what is published in every country of the world, or at least 50-60% of it, offering SA as a tourist destination and on top of it all everything that is placed on the web.

At the end of it they will probably have to rely on the professionalism and honesty of TOperators and web.

"You can leave Africa but Africa never leaves you"LIFE IS MADE OF GOOD AND BAD THINGS, I TAKE THE GOOD AND YOU CAN KEEP THE BAD!!!Andy Benaglia